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How did the bubonic plague affect Caravaggio’s family during his childhood?
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Caravaggio
The Conversion of St. Paul (second version), oil on canvas by Caravaggio, 1601; in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.
The bubonic plague had a devastating impact on Caravaggio’s family during his childhood. In 1576, while living in Milan, the family was exposed to an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Although they fled to the town of Caravaggio by the autumn of 1577 to escape the epidemic, the move proved unsuccessful.1
In the second half of 1577, the plague claimed the lives of Caravaggio’s father, his paternal grandfather, his paternal grandmother, and his uncle, Pietro. By the age of six, Caravaggio had lost nearly every male member of his family to the disease. Historians suggest that these traumatic events, which left the young artist with a profound sense of abandonment, may have contributed to his later fiery and unruly temperament.1